San Francisco

[One-Off]

We'll be up in Inverness on Saturday for a 40 year college reunion ( Cal State International Programs, Florence, Italy Study Center). Sunday's my daughter's birthday and she wanted to go to prison (Alcatraz). We'll spend Monday and Tuesday in town.

Suggestions?

 

[sdsrfr]

Stay on the north side of the GG (Marin).

I will send you a PM...

 

[slipped_disc]

Urban
Salesforce Park: this is a really cool park IMO. Five acres floating amidst the city. World-class landscape architecture and urban planning. Lots of intricate details and features that went into the planning of everything.

Views
Bernal hill looking into the city
Lands End looking north to Marin. This’ll likely be cold, windy and foggy when you’re there.

Surf
Mollusk is worth a check if you wanna fondle some nice fishes and mid lengths

Museums
De young has a beautiful campus and generally good exhibits. It’s bikeable from downtown on any rental — and you’ll bike through Golden Gate to get there too which is great experience.

Academy of Science is cool too.

Food
SF has it all. Whatever you’re looking for, you can find an amazing version of it.

 

[hammies]

Rent bikes and ride over the GG to Sausalito for lunch. Dress warm.
Twin Peaks for the killer view
DeYoung, Academy of Science, Exploratorium, and Palace of Fine Arts
Land's End is neat
Capo's is a great Italian restaurant with a good bar
The TL for a tour of the SF of FoxNews fame: homeless, mentally ill, and junkies
Marin Headlands is pretty killer

 

[enframed]

Hang Ah, for dumplings, in Chinatown. Do it.

 

[Bob Dobbalina]

All good recommendations.

Don't leave your sh!t in your car.
seriously.

 

[enframed]

Don't leave your sh!t in your car.
seriously.

Seriously.

 

[hammies]

Don't leave your sh!t in your car.
seriously.

My cousins drove across country and were visiting a friend in the Sunset and got their car cleaned out overnight. This was around the early 1970s.

Leave nothing in your car.

 

[kidfury]

Chubby Noodles

 

[One-Off]

So we went to Point Reyes on Saturday. My first time there on the peninsula. Beautiful. Alcatraz on Sunday. Definitely worth the trip. While we were there there was an ex-inmate signing books. As we were leaving, a new boat load of visitors was arriving and I joked, "A new batch of prisoners arriving." I didn't realize he was walking right behind me. Must be strange for him to see happy tourists in such a traumatic location.

Monday we walked the Haight, Divisadero and the Painted Ladies. Tuesday we took the cable car from Hyde and Beach to Union Square and walked downtown including the Salesforce Transit Park. We walked back to our hotel through North Beach (Little Italy). Wednesday went to the De Young Museum and saw the Ansel Adams and Kehinde WIley exhibitions.

Our hotel (motel) was on Lombard so every morning we'd go up to Union St for breakfast and every evening we'd walk down to Ghirardelli Square and have a hot chocolate and walk around the Fisherman' Wharf. The Fisherman's Wharf was the only sad note. All the oldest restaurants closed (Castagnola's and Aliota's). I remember it from my childhood as being a lively place. Now it was seedy and run down. We did dine at the Boudin Bakery. That was the only spot that was still really busy.

I guess coming from Los Angeles, the homeless problem didn't seem so out of control. We never were in the Tenderloin, we I guess is like LA's Skid Row. SF still seems like a really nice place to live IMHO. But frickin cold. Back in So Cal it's like, "Oh yeah, it's summer!"

ps oh yeah, coming home down the coast the only decent surf I saw was at Montara, headh high peaks. We stopped to watch for 15 minutes and saw 5 blown take offs. I guess they were all beginners. Oh and Mailbu looked fun at Sunset...with 30 people out...

 

[Autoprax]

In 2007-8, I was there after the crash.

All the restaurants and bars were empty.

It was the weirdest thing to see ever. I was like, Wow, it died.

I went back years later. pre covid and it was roaring.

It will come back again.

I'm going up in a couple of weeks.

 

[Mr Doof]

ps oh yeah, coming home down the coast the only decent surf I saw was at Montara, headh high peaks. We stopped to watch for 15 minutes and saw 5 blown take offs. I guess they were all beginners.

My internal running joke is that Montara is the home of the 15-30 minute surf.

It takes that long to realize how you could be doing something else (and still justify the paddle out).

PS
Had the car broken into once there. A woman in Redwood City rang me up to tell me she had found my jacket and wallet (jacket tossed in her yard). When I picked it up, she asked me if I had any pot as a reward. I said no and gave her a $20.

PPS
And yes, every dog (surf spot) has its day. Still recall the one (very short right) tube ride lit up by the golden light of a rising sun (and maybe one of the scariest whale sightings ever...surfaced within 20-30 ft of me). And to think, it only looked 'meh' from the bluff that morning.

 

[One-Off]

My internal running joke is that Montara is the home of the 15-30 minute surf.

It takes that long to realize how you could be doing something else (and justify the paddle out).

PS
Had the car broken into once there. A woman in Redwood City rang me up to tell me she had found my jacket and wallet (jacket tossed in her yard). When I picked it up, she asked me if I had any pot as a reward. I said no and gave her a $20.

The waves at the state beaches south of Half Moon looked OK....but spooky. Why's no one out?

My wife loves SF. She's from Italy and I guess it has more of a Euro vibe than LA. My dad's family is from SF but they seem to all be moving away- one uncle to Seattle, an Aunt and cousin to Elk Grove ( I visited her once and it was 100+ degrees), another cousin to Milbrae...I have one aunt with dementia left in SF and a cousin who moved back in to care for her. When she passes and the cousins sell the house and divide up the spoils I imagine that cousin might have to leave SF. He used to own a bar but lost it during the pandemic. Kind of sad my family's roots are withering like that.

 

[Mr Doof]

The waves at the state beaches south of Half Moon looked OK....but spooky. Why's no one out?

Looks are both deceiving and real. (Am sure you can figure which descriptor matches up with your perceptions.)

But honestly, the math follows the usual factors: effort/risk to payoff.

He used to own a bar but lost it during the pandemic.

Which one?

 

[One-Off]

http://www.feightsf.com/[/URL]

I thought it closed but I guess it was only during the lockdown. Not my kind of music. I remember when we were kids he mocked me for listening to "guitar" music. I was into surfing, he was into basketball.

 

[hammies]

SF is pretty nice, I go up there every couple months it seems. Overall the city is one of the most beautiful in the world, but like all cities it has its no-go zones. The Mission is a little rough and the TL is def gnarly, but the other 85% of SF is quite charming.

 

[SurfFuerteventura]

San Francisco and New Orleans, only US cities I would/could consider returning to live in a city in the Untied States, both are the most European feel to them I've known.

 

[Bob Dobbalina]

It's been a pretty incredible week here.
I did head into the tenderloin during a heatwave. Parking was a beast because everything was getting blocked off for the senile old senator's memorial. Although the pizza, wings, and sandwich were absolutely top notch, block to block, it's still fucking heartbreaking over there.